The morning after Shen Yi officially rejoined the Scarlet Immortal Sect, everything around the sect was quiet and tense.
Not silent.
Just… watching.
The kind of quiet that settles over a place when its walls remember blood and betrayal. When rumors carry further than the wind.
Shen Yi stepped into the lower courtyard, his breath visible in the mountain chill. A pale light crowned the cliffs above, washing the stone paths in cold silver. His robes, crimson and gray, felt too formal—too tight against skin that still didn't feel like his.
But he walked anyway.
Each step echoed.
Each glance from passing disciples was a needle.
He didn't flinch.
Didn't return their stares.
But a part of him wanted to run.
Another part—darker, quieter—wanted to see who dared approach.
---
At the edge of the courtyard, Su Yao stood beneath a cypress, watching him.
She hadn't spoken much since they arrived. Hadn't needed to. Her eyes had said enough.
Now, she gave him a brief nod as he passed.
"You're handling this better than expected," she said.
He gave a faint smile. "I think I've forgotten how to panic."
Su Yao raised a brow. "That's not a good thing."
"No," he agreed. "But it's something."
---
The training hall was waiting.
Old, worn, sacred.
Its wooden pillars were stained with generations of sweat and blood. Carvings of the sect's oath—sacrifice, discipline, silence—ran along the beams like veins.
Shen Yi stepped inside and was met with a low hum.
The formation stones embedded in the floor glowed faintly beneath his boots, responding to his presence. Reacting.
Or recognizing.
Master Lin, an older instructor with eyes like dull iron, bowed slightly.
"You've been granted limited access," he said.
"To what?"
"To yourself," the man said. "Begin with restraint. End with nothing."
---
Hours passed.
He moved through basic forms at first—stances, strikes, spiritual circulation. His qi behaved more like a cornered beast than a willing stream, snarling and recoiling whenever he pushed too far.
But he endured.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Until his robes were damp with sweat, his breath short, and his hands trembling.
But still, he did not stop.
Because if he stopped… he might remember.
And remembering might break him.
---
Outside, on the cliffs above, Yan Xue watched from a narrow overlook.
She stood alone, arms folded, her hair rippling in the wind like black silk. She'd told no one where she was going.
She didn't need to.
Her cultivation had advanced again—barely a step, but enough to sense him from a distance.
It wasn't his spiritual signature she followed.
It was the way the air shifted when he moved. The way the world seemed to hold its breath when his qi surged.
She hated it.
And yet she couldn't look away.
"Why do you still matter?" she whispered.
The wind had no answer.
Only the weight of her own pulse thudding faster than it should.
---
That evening, the Sect Lord summoned her.
She found him in the high garden, tending to a bonsai that had clearly outlived its original form. Its branches twisted unnaturally, yet held perfect balance.
"Princess Yan," he said without turning. "You've seen him. What's your assessment?"
Yan Xue folded her arms. "He's dangerous."
"So is half the sect."
"He doesn't know who he is," she said. "But he's becoming him again."
The Sect Lord looked up.
"And does that frighten you?"
She met his gaze without flinching. "No. But it should frighten you."
He smiled faintly. "Good. Then perhaps you'll be the knife when we need one."
She turned to leave, then paused.
"He's not the same as before," she said.
"But that doesn't make him better."
---
Meanwhile, Shen Yi stood under a cold waterfall behind the northern cliffs.
The training scrolls had instructed a cleansing technique—one meant to harmonize body and spirit.
He didn't feel harmony.
He felt pressure.
Endless, pounding, rhythmic.
Like the force wanted to break him open.
Like it already had once.
The demon inside him—if that's what it was—had grown louder with every attempt to reclaim qi. It whispered not in words, but in impulses. Hunger. Rage. Heat.
He grit his teeth and forced his energy inward, guiding it through the channels as instructed.
Then—
A flicker.
His breath caught.
And for a heartbeat…
He felt everything.
Not just himself—but her.
Yan Xue.
Her pain. Her silence. Her fury folded beneath stillness.
And her grief, buried deep.
He stumbled forward, gasping, eyes wide.
"What… was that?"
---
Back in her quarters, Yan Xue froze mid-step.
She touched her chest.
A sudden heat—like fingers brushing a scar that hadn't healed.
"No," she whispered.
And for the first time in weeks…
She locked the door.
And wept.
----
The next morning, Shen Yi stood before a mirror, shirt half-loosened, water dripping from his hair. The cold of the waterfall had numbed his skin but not his thoughts.
That feeling from yesterday—the pulse that wasn't his, that surge of emotion not rooted in his own pain—it hadn't gone away.
It was as if something had cracked open inside him.
A thread had been tied. Not of affection. Not of memory.
Of suffering. Shared and sharp.
He touched his chest where it had burned. The heat had faded. But its echo remained.
"Yan Xue…"
---
Elsewhere, Yan Xue knelt in her meditation hall, robes clean, posture composed—but her qi was jagged.
She had tried to center herself for hours.
Failed.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt him.
That was new.
Their bloodline resonance had always made her aware of his presence when he was near. A side effect of their connection—of what he had stolen, of what he had broken.
But now?
Now it was deeper. Clearer.
She could feel him.
Not just location.
Emotion.
Regret. Longing. Confusion. Pain.
And something worse:
Hope.
She clenched her fists until her nails bit her palms.
He had no right to hope.
He had no right to reach toward her with anything but apology and ash.
And yet…
And yet…
Part of her wanted to reach back.
Not to comfort.
To punish.
To understand.
---
Later that day, a message arrived for Shen Yi—sealed in the red wax of the Elder's Hall.
He opened it alone under the shade of a quiet maple tree, and as his eyes scanned the parchment, his breath slowed.
"Trial assessment," he murmured aloud.
An elder-led evaluation. Public. Supervised.
Not just cultivation performance.
Behavior. Temperament. Risk.
If he failed—he could be locked away. Or worse.
And someone wanted him to fail.
He could feel it in the language—cold, formal, thinly veiled.
A second note was folded behind the first. Handwritten.
A single line.
"If you lose control again, we won't give you another chance."
No signature. No seal.
But he knew.
Someone within the sect feared him more than they feared his potential.
---
That night, he walked alone across the rope bridge behind the East Tower—where the wind howled and lanterns swung like restless spirits.
There, leaning against the far post, he found her.
As if she'd been waiting.
"Yan Xue," he said.
She didn't turn. "I know about the trial."
"Did you send it?"
"If I wanted you destroyed, I wouldn't hide behind paper."
He stepped closer. "Then why are you here?"
Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes were cold, but not empty.
"You're not the only one being tested."
He waited.
"I'm still deciding," she said softly. "Whether your pain matters."
"And if it does?"
"Then maybe I'll hurt you a little less before the end."
---
They stood in silence, watching the stars emerge from the clouds.
"I remember something," Shen Yi said quietly.
She didn't speak.
"A plum tree," he continued. "Laughter. You… barefoot, with dye on your fingers."
She froze.
He turned toward her.
"Was that real?"
Her jaw tightened. "Don't chase that memory."
"Why?"
"Because the man who laughed beside me is gone."
He nodded slowly. "Maybe."
"Maybe?" she snapped.
He stepped closer. "But the man who regrets that he's gone is still here."
Something cracked in her expression. Only for a second.
Then she shoved past him.
But before she disappeared into the tower shadows, she said—
"Don't try to be kind. It makes me hate you more."
---
The trial day came.
The inner disciples gathered in the south arena, their robes lined in red and silver, their eyes full of judgment and curiosity.
Elder Han stood at the center with two others from the High Council.
Shen Yi entered the circle alone, his robe plain, his hair tied back, his steps calm.
But the murmurs rose like insects.
"Why let him walk freely?" "He's unstable." "He's cursed."
He heard them all.
But he said nothing.
Until the elder gestured forward. "Begin."
The formation array lit beneath his feet.
Spiritual pressure surged from all sides—a gravity field meant to test not just physical control, but mental discipline.
Shen Yi closed his eyes.
Breathed once.
And let go.
His qi flared—wild, violent, molten.
The crowd flinched. The elders stiffened.
But he didn't attack.
He channeled it inward. Wrestled with it. Held it like a blade over his own heart.
He didn't fall.
He didn't break.
And when he opened his eyes, the storm had receded.
Breathless silence followed.
Then, from the stands—
"She's here," someone whispered.
Yan Xue had arrived.
She stood above them all, looking down with arms folded.
She didn't cheer. Didn't frown.
Just watched.
And for once… he felt seen.
---
Afterward, as the courtyard cleared, Shen Yi sat alone beneath the stone lanterns.
Su Yao approached quietly. "You passed."
"Barely."
"You didn't lose control."
"I nearly wanted to."
She paused. "Because of her?"
He didn't answer.
"You're changing," she said.
"I don't know into what."
"Maybe that's the point."
He looked up. "What if I become something worse?"
"Then I'll be here," she said.
He gave her a tired smile. "To stop me?"
"To remind you," she said softly, "what it means to try again."
---
That night, Yan Xue returned to her room and opened a box she hadn't touched in five years.
Inside:
A silk ribbon.
A dried plum blossom.
And a scrap of calligraphy—faded ink, trembling handwriting.
It was his.
A poem. Incomplete.
"If I must be the demon of your end, let me remember the moment you first smiled—"
She folded it shut.
She did not weep.
But she did not sleep.
---
Far beyond the sect walls, in a hidden chamber beneath the earth, a cloaked figure bowed before a twisted altar.
"His strength returns."
The altar pulsed with black-red light.
The voice from within snarled: "Then we prepare the chains again."
---